Kathmandu, Feb. 3 -- I am struck by a situation that is generating characters, charades, and challenges of a different nature. To a student of literature and theatre, a teacher and writer of plays, this surfeit of metaphors and images is not an ordinary event. People in the country are debating about dramatic events that the German playwright Bertotlt Brecht would have called 'epic theatre' if he were to rise here now. Dramatic events imply fast changing times and somersaults of characters. In Nepal, such dramatic events are seen in the political sphere, and in how the polity and people interact with each other.

But there are many other events that suggest a trifle surreal in nature. They are surreal because the events generally happen i...